One of the best visual gags of all time

All the staunch advocates of online safety in the UK Parliament acting decisively on this any minute now...

Back in the 80s, The The were a big deal. Or, as they were known in the Northwest of England, "That The".

I am so happy. My Kickstarter, www.jrothman.com/speakingkick... just got a #ProjectWeLove. Woo!

"I get a second LLM to check the first LLM's output, and then I get the first LLM to check the second LLM's corrections." This is a fascinating variation on the Two Guards riddle.

ChatGPT? Is that you?

Interesting. My power flickered for a fraction of a second. Some appliances reset, others were fine.

With the UK government seemingly unable or unwilling to act over Grok, can we take it that the Online Safety Act had nothing in fact to do with safety online?

"Yeah, but Jason, AI will be able to generate novel code because <achievements of a very different kind of very application-specific AI>"

The key to being effective with "AI" coding assistants is being effective without them. All Codemanship training courses now have modules on "AI"-assisted software development. And I've put them at the end. So you have to learn to do it without "AI" first. Sorry, not sorry. codemanship.co.uk

Join me in a couple of weeks for one (or both) of my one-day sessions at NDC London @ndcconferences.com: The Hitchhiker's Guide to Computer Science ndclondon.com/workshops/th... Program with GUTs ndclondon.com/workshops/pr... See you there!

LLMs stop learning the second they leave school. Who's that gonna replace, huh?

This week's "I Haven't Thought This Through" is the idea that code doesn't need to be human-readable if it's generated by or modified exclusively by LLMs. 1. There'll *never* be a time when a human won't need to understand it - to check it or to fix it 2. WTF are you gonna train models on?

While we take a break, just thinking about a discussion we had this morning about "Type-Driven Development" in Rust, and the discussions I've had/seen in the past. TyDD is sometimes presented as an alternative to TDD. Thing is, the type system in Rust enforces *safety*, not logical *correctness*

Don't let this Jan 6th point get lost: Jack Smith testified to Congress he had "proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election." In other words, he could prove in court that Trump attempted a coup.

The key to being effective with "AI" coding assistants is being effective without them. All Codemanship training courses now have modules on "AI"-assisted software development. And I've put them at the end. So you have to learn to do it without "AI" first. Sorry, not sorry. codemanship.co.uk

In July 2024, I warned that if Trump were re-elected, "The age of multilateralism would be over, and something much worse will take its place. The UK and Europe will need to find the means of defending ourselves". I was called "hysterical". Well, here we are. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Expert systems are inevitable Don’t get left behind, Flash is the future Cryptocurrency will obsolete fiat currency Better claim your stake in the Metaverse By 2015, we will all have self-driving cars Pen computing is going to end keyboards You’ll look so stupid if you miss out on NFTs

A mouse is smarter than an LLM. Not as well read. But smarter.

company that creates deepfake CSAM raises $20 billion www.nytimes.com/2026/01/06/t...

"Suzi Quatro. She in town?" Possibly the best version of this classic. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozOE...

Nicolás Maduro Charged With Felony Oil Possession

Or, by its Latin name, Dominic Cummings

With US oil companies passing on Venezuela, did the White House invade a sovereign nation and kidnap its head of state just to get its hands on a bauble?

US justice department has released less than 1% of Epstein files, filing reveals www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

"Doom Loops" are real youtube.com/shorts/aIvHf...

I'm shaking things up in January. 1. Remote training bookings confirmed by Jan 31st are HALF PRICE. Save ££££ if you're planning training in the next few months. 2. All courses now have modules focused on applying code craft practices in AI-assisted wotshisface. Details at codemanship.co.uk

I'm shaking things up in January. 1. Remote training bookings confirmed by Jan 31st are HALF PRICE. Save ££££ if you're planning training in the next few months. 2. All courses now have modules focused on applying code craft practices in AI-assisted wotshisface. Details at codemanship.co.uk

If productivity = value created / cost To increase productivity, we can: ↓ cost ↑ value But value can be hard to define and measure, while cost is pretty tangible. So most engineering leaders just see: productivity = ???/cost And that, in a nutshell, is why software development so often sucks.

"Hernández boasted that he would 'stuff the drugs up the gringos’ noses' while trafficking more than 500 tons of cocaine into the US. "Trump freed him, saying, 'If somebody sells drugs in that country, that doesn’t mean you arrest the president and put him in jail'..." www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...

Tonight's movie is Freaky Tales. So far, pretty good.

If I long-term mentor someone again, there'll be a contract that includes a list of companies.

Just a cute little picture to go with the information below…

The concluding post in my AI-Ready Software Developer series ties all the threads together. Far from "changing the game", AI coding assistants have just added another layer of uncertainty to an already very uncertain process. Same game, different dice. codemanship.wordpress.com/2026/01/05/t...

Great developers are built through their good habits. Not flashy frameworks. Not ten new AI tools. Not memorising every key shortcut in VS Code (though that is impressive). The real magic is in small, consistent habits that make you better every day. 2/7

The concluding post in my AI-Ready Software Developer series ties all the threads together. Far from "changing the game", AI coding assistants have just added another layer of uncertainty to an already very uncertain process. Same game, different dice. codemanship.wordpress.com/2026/01/05/t...

Well, it's late. A very happy Remembering What Your Job Is Day to all who celebrate.

In a single sentence, the impact of LLMs on software development: "Same game. Different dice."

If you're struggling to get the code-generating firehose to do what you need, and you're looking at people online claiming they've cracked it, worry not. Just 2 things you need to know: * Contexts should be small and specific * They're very probably lying

The hard part about running a dictatorship is that the past changes so quickly you have no idea what will happen yesterday.

Listening to the latest Celebrities Who Know Each Other podcast. They're talking about stuff. It's sponsored by a VPN provider or an online learning platform or a meal replacement drink or something like that.

Neighbour who claimed 4 parking spaces during the pandemic for their one car has parked across 3 spaces after putting notices on windscreens of cars using the parking spaces that came with their flats. This should be interesting.

The main problem with Big Design Up-Front is that most of what we *really* need to know lies on the feedback side of the development process. Without that feedback, it's all just guesswork.

I get my eyes scanned once a year to check for retinopathy. If the doctors detected a deterioration, those checks would be done more often to monitor its progress. The President has said he's had 3 dementia tests in the recent past.

"Until we get an invasion from Mars, we shall not be tamed by an other species. All we can do is to try to tame ourselves, that an oligarchy tries to tame ourselves, but the oligarchy still remains wild." Aldous Huxley

At the time, I thought this was a cool album. I still think that today, but with less hair. www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbiQ...

now, it might seem odd that political commentators who advocated for the uk to leave the eu because of their belief in “the nation state” to be supportive of america’s annexation of venezuela, but what you have to remember is that those people didn’t actually think that, they were lying for money

I'm very much not in the "green builds should be deployed by default" camp. What to do with green builds is a "pull" decision, not a "push" decision. As anyone who's been late for a paid remote meeting because the app was updating might tell you. Remember customers? They were all the rage once.